


Stuck with you

by Offbrand_Valk



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Maria is mixed race Latina, if you squint a bit - Freeform, like in the comics when they don't forget it, the good place AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 05:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Offbrand_Valk/pseuds/Offbrand_Valk
Summary: Maria dies and ends up in the good place.Here she meets her soulmate Natasha Romanoff and sparks fly immediately. Unfortunately they're sitting on an enormous powderkeg





	1. Everything is fine

**Author's Note:**

> Yes believe it or not, I am in fact still alive, and writing. This fic took way longer than i had wanted it to because of university nonsense, but on the bright side, now its all ready to go just needing a final proof reading, so if all goes well it should all be up before the end of the week.

"Welcome!"

"Everything is fine!"

Maria Hill was immediately suspicious of the grass green text on the pleasantly beige/white background.

The door to her left opened. A kind elderly man with chalk-white hair stepped out and smiled at her. "Maria? Come on in." He said and nodded towards his office.

Seeing no better option, Maria cautiously followed him in and sat down on one side of the futon that was the only piece of sit-able furniture in the room. "So much for professionalism" She thought to herself, already sensing that she was going to dislike how things were run around here.

The elderly man sat down a respectable, yet friendly distance from her on the couch. " I'm Gabriel. How are you today? " He said with an outstretched hand.

Maria cautiously shook it, making sure to keep a full view of him while she did so. "Pretty good, I mean other than the whole being dead thing." she said with a shrug.

Gabriel blinked twice at her, clearly taken aback by her frankness. "Oh dear? you remember that? Dying I mean? I'm sorry, standard procedures in cases like yours is to remove the memory to save you all that unpleasantness."

"Well, the last thing I remembered was going on that mission in Dubai, and next thing I know I'm sitting on a designer couch next to an indoor rock garden. _I've died and gone to hell_ seemed like the most reasonable conclusion."

"Oh no no no no." Gabriel said flailing his arms in what Maria assumed was supposed to be a comforting manner. "You, Maria Christina Hill is in The Good Place"

"Excuse me?" Maria said, concealing her confusion with sternness.

"Every action you've taken in life has had either a positive or negative net impact on the world at large. Then at the time of death we calculated the sum of all your actions, and depending on the results we put you in either the good place, or the bad place. And in your case, we put you here, in the good place."

Maria raised an eyebrow. "And you're sure those calculations are correct? Didn't forget to account for standard deviation or something like that?"

"Yes absolutely" Gabriel cheered. "You are without a doubt a good person, by a very large margin I might add."

"Sounds fake but okay."

 

After a tour of the neighborhood, wherein Maria saw more frozen yoghurt places than she could visit in a thousand life times. Gabriel took her to see her soulmate, because apparently that was a thing.

Her soulmate was already making herself comfortable in the home that was build to be perfect for them. Maria reserved judgement until she could get the full picture, but first impressions didn't exactly scream dream house.

It was old, and ramshackle, and not so much in need of TLC as a wrecking ball. It only had running water in the bathroom, most of the windows were either smashed in or had fallen out of the frame, and power came from a generator that could almost manage to power both the fridge and the water heater (almost).

 

* * *

 

 

So far this whole "good place"-situation, had left Natasha underwhelmed more than anything else. The neighborhood was pretentious, the people in it were social, and her "dreamhouse" had an unpleasant familiarity to it that she couldn't put her fingers on. Which was to say nothing of her sneaking suspicion that she had ended up in the wrong place by mistake and Gabriel was just too proud to admit it.

Her soulmate had better knock her socks off, not to mention be a huge fan of doing all the DIY work by herself, or Natasha might genuinely just pack up her stuff and find somewhere else to spend eternity.

The woman Gabriel lead through the door was tall as shirt, had short, curly, black hair, light brown skin, and arms like a bodybuilder, that were perfectly framed by a plain gray tank-top. First impressions were very good, disapproving glare notwithstanding.

Then she opened up her mouth. To say that she spoke was a bit generous, it was more of a non-descriptive snort. Natasha had been trying without luck to decide how best to introduce herself to her soulmate. After that warm welcome there was no doubt in her mind how best to proceed.

"Natasha." She simply stated, with an overly formal outstretched hand.

"Maria." Her soulmate replied after a moments pause, matching her tone.

"Well I'll leave you lovebirds to it then." Gabriel said, before awkwardly stepping out through the front door hanging on by a thread.

 

They looked each other up and down for a solid 30 seconds without either of them knowing what to say. Natasha eventually just went for it, saying the first thing that came to mind. "Let me guess: you were a relief worker, who spent her entire adult life building shelters in war-torn 3rd world countries. Which is why we're now living in the bombed out husk of your childhood home." There was a lot more bite in her tone than she had meant for, it didn't matter, her soulmate would obviously be able to look through that.

"Not even close" Maria snorted. "My turn. You were..." She pursed her lips thoughtfully in a manner Natasha couldn't help but find a little charming. "The daughter of an oligarch who over a period of several years convinced your father to adopt a progressive and humanitarian approach to his business."

Clearly her soulmate was a magician, Natasha concluded, because in the span of a few words she could make all her charm disappear. "Let me introduce myself again: Lieutenant Natalia Alianovna Romanoff, previously of the KGB until I went rogue."

"Then you're not a lieutenant." Maria said. Natasha raised a questioning eyebrow in reply. "lieutenant is a military rank, you forfeit your rank upon leaving the army, unless you joined another military organ and earned the rank of lieutenant there."

They glared at each other.

"Well that answers my other question, you were definitely army brass. American?" Maria didn't even get a chance to confirm before Natasha disappeared out the door.

 

Maria shrugged to herself, she hadn't really put a lot of thought into all that soul mate nonsense, and first impressions definitely made it clear that she had been on the right track. Instead Maria put her sights on loftier pursuits, than a tiny redheaded Russian spy... namely, dinner.

Their fridge was of course empty, luckily the good place was a money-less, socialist, utopia. Combined with the fact that Maria had been forcibly retired, she gleefully realized that she wouldn't have to chose between quesadilla or lasagna! She could make one for dinner and the other for breakfast.

Being dead ruled!

 

It would have ruled a whole lot more if she had an oven, or a working stovetop, or any kitchen utensils other than a single moldy wooden spoon.

Back into town she went. To hustle up some pots and pans, a zippo, some soap and an axe (so she could finally feel like a woman again). She really forking hoped the rest of the neighborhood weren't feeling as sociable as they were the first time around, cause if they were heaven was going to have its first murder.

Sure Maria could have just gotten a brand new, 6 burner, self-cleaning, stove top powered by sunshine and rainbows or something, but after the day she'd had, a bit of woman vs wild would do her good.

She bet Natasha the spy was probably having soy late and avocado toast for dinner at a hipster café somewhere. She probably didn't even know how to make a wilderness oven.

 

* * *

 

 

Natasha's day had only gotten worse. She had been planning to ask Gabriel for a less broken down house separate from her "soul mate". On her way into town she redecided. There was no way _the Black Widow_ was letting some bitchy roommate and disregarded building codes scare her away from home.

If someone was going to be moving out, it would be Maria, she promised herself as she "bought" herself a thermal sleeping bag, in preparation for a night in a ghost house. First thing first though: dinner. She had to try out the restaurant that claimed it could serve her anything.

She turned her nose towards home feeling a lot better with herself after having eaten a truffle mini-quiche Lorraine, lobster thermidor, and barbecue shrimp pizza (no time like post mortem for self-care).

 

Her roommate, as Natasha had promised herself she would call her, had been busy. She had build a sort-of kitchen on the terrace, and made a fireplace that was busily warming rocks for a wilderness oven.

On the one hand Natasha could easily slip in the house unnoticed, and find a quiet corner to curl up and reread Anna Karenina. On the other hand, she was reenergized and fit for a fight, whilst Maria was probably exhausted from cooking, which meant it was the perfect time for round 2. "Let me guess, steak, bloody red, with a side of protein powder."

Her roommate turned around, and Natasha had to contain a soft gasp. She was not prepared for the cuteness that was Maria Hill with flecks of flour on her face. "Nope, lasagna from scratch, 30 hour shifts doesn't really allow a lot of time to cook, and I missed it." Whether the spite in Natasha's voice had been missed or ignored was a mystery for the ages.

Still trying to get over the flour freckles, Natasha said the first thing that came to mind. "The hell kind of agency makes you work 30 hour shifts?"

"Well they didn't _make_ me pull that long shifts, it was just that very few people were actually able to pull rank to make me stop before I began seeing spots." Maria said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"A workaholic are we? Is there anything I can help with?" Not that Natasha wouldn't have been perfectly contend watching Maria's back muscles work as she rolled pasta sheets.

"Definitely a part of it, though the fact that people would die if I slacked off didn't help matter either. Could I get you to chop the veggies?

 

They worked together in silence for the next hour, only occasionally throwing in the odd bit of trivia. Maria told her it was her grandfather that had taught her to cook originally. Natasha told her she had been practicing ballet since she was 4, and still kept her skills honed. It was nice, if only puddle-deep. At least they weren't tearing each other's heads off.

Then Maria did something stupid as they waited for the lasagna to bake. She tried to open up. "I see them when I try to sleep."

Natasha blinked once, trying to remember what their last conversation had been about, it was nothing that made sense in the context. "hmm?" She replied neutrally.

Everything in Maria was screaming at her. "The people who died on my watch, the people who died because of my negligence, the people I could have saved."

"oh..." Was Natasha's first thought, she knew just what to say to steer the conversation unto more pleasant topics, and how to abuse her guilt to get her to spill secrets. Comforting was however not on the Red Room syllabus. "That's rough." Was all she could think to say, the Black Widow was truly a master of the human mind.

Maria grunted and took a long swig of instant coffee. "It's not so bad, you get used to it after a while."

"I know." Natasha sighed.

Natasha opened her mouth to mention her own nightmares, but Maria was quicker "anyways, oversharing time is now officially over, we apologize for the inconvenience."

And that was all there was to say about that. Natasha was pretty sure she was relieved to be spared the horrors of having to be emotional support (at least 80% sure).

 

After Maria finished her dinner, and Natasha her second dinner, they went exploring together. The house was every bit the trash heap it had looked at first glance. By comparison the ashes at the bottom of Maria's campfire were in a better state than most of the actual furniture.

Though they couldn't agree on how exactly it would work, they were certain it was only a matter of time before a ghost showed up. They were both looking forward to subsequently getting to kick the shirt out of them. "And I mean, if it starts suspecting something is up, I'll just scream and run awkwardly down a hallway in my underwear. That's bound to get its attention." Natasha said to finalize their ghost-hunting plan.

Natasha's strange feeling of familiarity with the house came to their advantage when she realized (or remembered?) that there was a storage room behind a semi-hidden door in one of the ground floor sitting rooms. Most of what was in there was garbage in one form or another, with the exception of a somewhat new sofa that had been spared the ravages of time and other nasties by a thick plastic cover.

With a bit of effort, they got the sofa up to the first floor guest room, which seemed to be the most windproof in the house. Judging by eye, the couch was able to just about fit 1 Natasha, or most of a Maria if she squeezed a bit. They were certain it couldn't be the only hospitable piece of furniture in the house.

 

It was... Maria and Natasha went through the whole house top to bottom, 3 more times, with flashlights, but nothing. They found several more hidden room, including one containing a sensory deprivation chamber, and another that had without a doubt been used as solitary confinement by the previous owner.

"I think you should take it." Maria said after they had finally given up looking.

"I've slept on the floor of worse places than this, you should take it?" Natasha countered.

"And you don't think I have? Come on, it fits you better, take it." Maria said, getting a little annoyed by her roommate's stubbornness.

"Yeah, well you made me dinner, take the bed as payback." Natasha said, raising her voice to match Maria's

"I made myself dinner, you just happened to be here when it was done. You can't make small portions of lasagna, it's just not possible!"

"That's stupid, of course it's possible to make small portions of Lasagna."

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

 

Maria and Natasha growled and glared at each other from across the room.

"Fine! Then I guess neither of us are taking the couch." Maria said, throwing up her hands in defeat."

"Fine!" Natasha agreed

"Fine!"

They rolled out their sleeping bags with military precision. Exactly parallel, 2 meters apart, equal distance between the couch and the door. They gave each other one final glare and went to sleep on the cold hard floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always feel free to come talk to me on tumblr at https://offbrand-valk.tumblr.com/


	2. This is fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This should probably have been 2 chapters, but neither part felt satisfactory on its own, so here we are, stuck in a hell of run-on sentences, and dodgy grammar.
> 
> Minor tw: for some graphic-ish description of injuries

They began planning over breakfast the next morning. Much to Maria's chagrin they ended up having it at a charming corner café, the alternative was cereal with water since neither of them were building a campfire out of rotten furniture before coffee, and coffee required them to build a campfire.

They were going to go about renovations like adults, there would be no policing each other's efforts, no major changes that weren't agreed on, and most certainly no passive aggressive post-its. Once the house started taking shape they would negotiate how to split the house between them. though they agreed it would most likely look along the lines of 33% for Maria, 33% for Natasha, 34% shared areas.

 

"So, I think our first project should be getting a functional kitchen up and running." Maria said in her "meeting-voice", as she packed away the immense 48 point plan she had sketched out while they ate.

"I disagree, first we should get a forking car, cause I'm not hauling an oven all the way back home by hand." Natasha replied, only half bothering to sass Maria.

"Well, we could just get it delivered via magical teleportation." Maria shrugged.

"I thought we agreed. We're doing this the old-fashioned way, no shortcuts."

"We are, I just needed to check that you were willing to walk the talk."

At this Natasha marched up behind Hill and slapped the back of her head. "You didn't _need_ to do anything, you were just being an ass. Let me make this clear, I like the shirt-talking, but you're not my CO, so don't act like you need to test me, that clear?"

Maria rubbed the back of her head. "Crystal." Then after a moment's hesitation she added. "Thanks for calling me out."

Natasha slapped her shoulder (gently this time) and began walking back to her seat. "Don't worry about it, I know you would have done the same for me."

"You bet your sweet ass I would."

"Don't flatter, we both know my tits are my real asset."

"No, your humility is."

"You win this one Hill."

 

Natasha had fully expected Maria's planning gene to take over, and had loaded up on carbs in preparation for a day spend in the good place equivalent of Ikea, comparing energy efficiency of different brands in a world where neither money nor climate change existed. Maria on the other hand had figured Natasha was exactly the kind of person to adore shopping, and had done the same. They were both wrong and in less than 2 hours they managed to stock up for the next weeks' worth of renovation.

 

Whilst Maria assessed the mold damage in the kitchen (with a crowbar), Natasha looked around for a place to sit that didn't require a gasmask and brush up on her electrical engineering.

Lurking around the house she had the same feeling as yesterday: It was familiar. She had "lived" in a lot of different houses over time, including a lot of mansions. Yet this house seemed special, and not in a pleasant way. They had joked last night that the house felt haunted, but in hindsight they might have been on to something. Because even in broad daylight Natasha couldn't shake the sense that something terrible had happened in this house, to the point where she almost wanted to arm herself.

She didn't find any more secret rooms, though she knew they were out there, instead she found memories. Her ability to remember her early life was broken to say the very least, the result of countless sessions of psychological torture and indoctrination. Could this be her childhood home? Where Alian, Renata, and little Alexei was murdered?

No that wasn't right. Natasha knew it all, knew the squeaky 7th step on the stair, knew the dinning room door that could never close all the way, knew the office with its own fireplace...

Oh god the office. The office where you were sent if you didn't master your forms quick enough for madame B. liking. Where Bezukhov sat in his big leather chair reading reports day in and day out. Natasha had gotten her first burn mark from the firepoker in the corner after Somodorov had stuck it in the fireplace for a minute.

This was the red room.

 

Maria had fucking called it! What little insulation the house had was rotten all the way through. Before she could begin installing all their fancy new kitchen gadgets, she would have to open every single wall and put in some new rockwool. 10 rolls of garbage bags were definitely not going to cut it.

After she had gotten the first row of boards down, she realized this was definitely a 2-person job, so she went looking for her roommate. hoping she could tear herself away from her interactive course on home electrical engineering.

Part of her also really hoped the house hadn't spontaneously opened up and eaten her.

 

She found Natasha in the 2nd floor office staring at a highbacked leather chair, with an expression somewhere between abject horror, and complete confusion. A wisecrack was sitting ready on Maria's lip, but she quickly thought better of it. "This is the red room." Natasha said, barely louder than a whisper.

Maria blinked twice while she scoured her brain for what bell that rang. "The red room? as in: secret USSR facility, training governmentally sanctioned assassins from childhood, red room?"

It seemed like a reasonable question to Maria, Natasha apparently disagreed. "No the unicorns and teddy bears themed ice cream parlor red room? Yes murder summer camp the red room. Where pushing broken glass under 6 year old's fingernails is considered a healthy character-building exercise, the red room."

To bite back, or not to bite back, that was the question. Usually biting back was her default response, then again usually she would have some sort of impression of the person she was talking to. Not Natasha though, she was a closely guarded enigma even by spy standards (and Maria had dealt with a lot of spies over the years).

For lack of a better response, she just shrugged, and Natasha went back to looking at the chair like it had inflicted 20 years of torment upon her.

 

"Okay I gotta ask, why the hell is orphanage of horror your dream home? Cause this place is clearly all you!" Maria said when the pause in conversation became awkwardly long.

Natasha turned towards her with icy fire in her eyes. "Just when I thought for a moment you might actually be able to act like a real human being! Do you think I know? I can literally not think of any place in the world I wouldn't rather be. This is my hell, plain and forking simple."

"Yeah, well excuse me for interrupting your Silent Hill moment by trying to figure out what part of your forked up psyche is the reason we're going to have to spend the next billion year fixing up this shirthole!" Maria yelled, walking all the way into Natasha's personal space.

Without a moment's hesitation Natasha jumped up and headbutted Maria hard enough to knock her into the floor boards.

 

"What the hell Romanoff?" Maria asked from the floor as she worked to keep the blood from flowing into her mouth.

Natasha, who was already marching towards the door, sneered: "Second floor is mine." and kept walking.

"I get the kitchen to myself 6 to 7 and 17 to 19." Maria replied, picking up what her roommate was throwing out.

"until 20, and you never use the hot tub." Natasha said, hand grasping the doorframe, and face turned towards the hallway. "Deal! Now get the hell of my floor."

"Fine!" Natasha said, slamming the door behind her.

"Fine!" Maria said to the closed door.

 

Maria slowly picked herself up off the floor and went to the bathroom to check out her nose. Yep, it was definitely broken. She winced once in preparation for the pain, and put her nose back in it's place, making sure not to give Natasha the satisfaction of hearing her yell as she did so.

 

* * *

 

They hadn't spoken in 6 weeks, and Maria was fine with that. Honestly she had barely spoken to anyone in that period, so maybe this really was the good place. The only time they had come close to interacting was when Maria had left a note on neutral ground to tell her she would turn off the water for a few hours.

Maria had in those 6 weeks been steadily chinking away at both the kitchen and the bedroom they had slept in the first night. She had replaced all the insulation in the kitchen, and the floorboards in the bedroom. She had gotten an actual bed in, all on her own, and somewhere along the way her roommate had gotten the power mostly back on (so long as you didn't try to have more than 3 lights on at a time on a floor, or didn't try to run any other appliances at the same time as the kettle).

Her next order of business was trying to get the walk-in fridge in working. They weren't likely to need it but then at least it could work as a larder if it was just turned off. That of course required it to not start leaking Freon and asbestos the moment you so much as looked at the switch too hard. Had she been smart, she would have checked how structurally sound it was, or at the very least poked it with a stick, before she went in with a stepladder, and started unscrewing ceiling tiles.

 

Predictably she took one slight misstep, lost her footing on the stepladder and next thing she knew, she had what felt like the entire walk-in crashed down on her lower body.

The sane thing to do would have been to call for help, especially once Maria began suspecting the tingling sensation in her lower right leg was something more than a scratch. Unfortunately whenever Natasha was involved, Maria's already legendary stubbornness reached outright insane proportions. Maria had gotten out of worse situations, not on her own, but first time for everything. She just needed to move the rubble a little bit at a time, without sitting completely upright.

 

"Hill what the shirt are you doing and why does it involve demolition charges?" Natasha yelled as she came down the stairs. Most of the time she could almost ignore the fact that the middle floor was being occupied by a disgustingly buff jarhead. Except of course when said jarhead decided to take a jackhammer to the foundation or whatever at 9:30 in the morning.

When she didn't get an answer, Natasha started investigating, just in case this wasn't directly her roommate's fault, as unlikely as that seemed.

Natasha found Maria buried under a pile of rubble, and making an exhausted attempt at escaping. "No explosives, just shoddy construction work on the part of the previous owners it seems." Maria remarked with a half hearted grin. Fucking Hill, would it kill her to admit that she was in pain?

"Do you need a hand, or have you got all those rocks exactly where you want them?" Natasha told herself she hoped Hill would be stubborn so she could get back to bingeing shows she didn't actually like.

To both their surprise Maria answered "I mean, if you don't have anything better to do, some help getting out from under this would really be appreciated." Natasha feigned a sigh, and started throwing off bits of wood, metal and rocks, whilst Maria tried her best to help from her awkward position.

"Jesus christ Hill, don't you think you should have mentioned that before I started chucking rubble everywhere?" Natasha said when they reached a point where she could see Maria's swollen and purple leg.

"Yeah I probably should, I'm sorry." Maria said, looking genuinely guilty.

"What? No snarky comebacks? Aren't you going to tell me how you'll just walk it off?" Natasha replied looking suspicious at Maria.

"Nope sorry, I'm swimming in an ocean of endorphins and adrenaline, don't think I have the brain power for that stuff right now." Maria said, and Natasha got even more worried.

"I'm getting you to a hospital." Natasha stated firmly, surely her idiot roommate wouldn't disagree with the simple notion that you went to the hospital an open fracture.

"Why? what's the worst thing that can happen? I die a second time?" Maria said, and Natasha screamed in frustration. "This is not up for debate Hill, I will choke you out to get you to come along if I have to!"

 

The good place didn't have a hospital! Gabriel kept apologizing and reassuring them that no lasting damage could occur. He simply hadn't thought about the possibility of humans getting injured, since that wasn't really a possibility for architects. What's more, creating a hospital would take at least a month according to Gabriel, something about aesthetics and not wanting to interfere with the flow of the city that neither Maria nor Natasha had the patience for paying attention to. As luck would have it, they had a Nobel prize winning doctor, with a humanitarian nurse as a soulmate living in the neighborhood.

"You know I'm not a trauma surgeon right?" Dr. Helen Cho, said as she opened the door to 2 strangers smiling awkwardly at her, one of whom had a very obvious piece of bone sticking out of her right leg, and seemed determined to pretend it didn't affect her in the slightest.

"Don't tell them that, they're going to try and put it back on their own." Her soulmate Claire said, as she came to see what all the fuzz was about.

"Well I did get-" Claire interrupted Maria's sentence before she could finish it. "I don't want to hear it, the fact that you're even considering self-surgery hurts my sanity, please just come in and lie down on the kitchen table. Babe can I burrow some gloves from your lab?" Helen had been looking forward to a quiet evening in with her girlfriend and a bottle of white, but instead she was going to perform kitchen table surgery. Sometimes she hated her soulmate.

Claire started rushing around the house looking for things that could replace important surgical tools. "We don't have any strong painkillers, so you'll have to make do with aspirins and a belt to bite down on." Maria shrugged, and began preparing for what was about to happen. Helen in the meantime cleaned the wound, and checked Maria for other injuries, Natasha prepared the space in the kitchen as best she could, and Janet conjured up a brace for when the surgery was finished.

"Relax, it's not like I can actually die again, the worst thing that can come of this is that you need to get a new dining table." Maria joked, but the tenseness cut through her voice.

"I'm so glad to hear you think that." Claire said and stuffed a folded leather belt into her mouth. "Because this is going to hurt like hell." She added, and before Maria had a chance to think about it, strapped her leg to the table and cut it open.

All the screams Maria had been holding in where let out at once. She thrashed and struggled, and Natasha had to fight to keep her pinned down. Helen focused on the task at hand while Claire swore up a storm and assisted her.

 

After what felt like an eternity in hell, Maria's leg was finally fixed and screwed back into place. Claire and Helen left them alone in the kitchen, with strict instructions for Maria not to move her lower body at all, to go write up a rehab plan for her.

"Thanks for this Romanoff." Maria said, with a look like she'd gotten something in her eye.

Natasha brushed her off. "It was nothing, I couldn't leave you lying there to rot, it's unsanitary."

Maria brushed a hand on her shoulder, and for **no reason at all** Natasha's heart skipped a beat. "I mean it Natasha, you did a really good thing for me, and I'm sorry I've been such a bench to you."

Natasha tried again to keep this new emotional Hill at an arm's length. "Well I've also been pretty benchy to you, so it's not like you weren't justified."

Maria smiled this exhausted smile, that Natasha found deeply unsettling in just how happy it looked. "But while I kept making things worse, you literally carried me in your arms out of harm's way."

"Okay you are absolutely baked out of your head. How about I go make us some tea, before you say something you're going to regret when you come to your senses. Like that you were sorry for being an insensitive glasshole." Natasha said, and went to rummage through store cupboards.

"Natasha... I'm sorry for being an insensitive glasshole." That was exactly not the thing Maria was supposed to say, and Natasha decided she would rather just pretend she didn't hear it.

 

Armed with crutches and a rehab plan, they drove back home to the house. Maria was still unsteady on her legs, and Natasha having had it up to hear with Maria's shirt, picked her up and carried her bridal style in. "I swore I would die before I let someone carry me across the threshold." Maria snorted

"Well you weren't wrong." Natasha agreed, giggling more from exhaustion than anything else. Maria giggled back at her.

Natasha gently sat her down in their best chair and they shared a longing look. "Thank you." Maria whispered breathlessly. Natasha stumbled back two steps and grabbed her phone. "Wow, look at the time, what a day huh. Are you hungry? I'm hungry. Tell you what I'll just go order us dinner, how does pad see ew sound? good? good." She said and rushed into the hallway to call Janet.

Maria was left sitting confused in the living room, staring at a turned off tv and too tired to reach for the remote. She respected that sometimes you just needed to be alone for a bit, (considering the day she'd had, she was surprised she hadn't needed it herself yet,) but to see Natasha motherforking Romanoff just straight up bail from a conversation, that was something different. Was it something Maria had said?

No that couldn't be, all she had said was: "thank you". With bated breath... While maintaining lingering eye contact. Oh god had she caught feelings?! This really was the worst day of her afterlife, she was having feelings again like some kind of 4-year-old. how was she supposed to deal with that?

Natasha re-entered the room, looking a lot more composed. Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it fast. Maybe Natasha shared her feelings? That would certainly explain a lot of weird looks. only one way to know for certain.

"If you want repayment for all the help you've given today, I wouldn't be opposed to providing it in the currency of sexual favors once my leg is healed." Maria said in her most deadpan voice, what better (safer) way was there to confess your undying love to someone?

"So, what? You suddenly started believing in soulmates?" Natasha said, changing her posture to a sultry swagger, and walking towards Maria. "hah, fat chance." Maria snorted when Natasha's flirty face was little than an inch from her own. "Good, because that would be a deal breaker." Natasha said and kissed her nose.

"Hey glasshole, my mouth is down!" Maria said indignantly.

"If you insist." Natasha grinned.


	3. We're fine

The next 4 month went by in a haze of long nights, and days in bed. Some days they only got out of bed to order food, and for Maria to do her exercises. Though they also managed to clean out the collapsed walk-in, albeit slowly, and Maria couldn't believe that she wasn't the least bit annoyed with their lack of headway. She was having too much fun just relaxing with Natasha and the garbage wasn't going anywhere.

They literally had all of eternity to get the house fixed, and it was already... almost, semi-liveable. They had slept in much worse places than a poorly-isolated, old, mansion with slightly dodgy wiring. They had a tv, a fridge, and a less than 1% chance of getting shot at! what more could you really want in life.

 

Gradually Maria's leg got better, and her urge to hit shirt with a hammer grew exponentially with it until it became unbearable. Then she dragged Natasha out of bed one morning to finish tearing down the walk-in, no matter how impractical it might have been in the grand scheme of things. Natasha protested for all of 5 seconds in the name of protecting Maria's leg, before she gave in.

Later in the day she tried to get Maria to quit early, by distracting her with kisses. That didn't work either, so Natasha was forced to accept that her girlfriend needed to find her own limits, recovery be damned.

When they stopped for lunch Maria was hot, sweaty, and tired, and not in the sexy way, well not just in the sexy way as far as Natasha was concerned. "What do you say we leave the rest of the demolition work for tomorrow, because I feel like I'm about to puke blood."

Natasha was relieved that Maria decided to stop while she was ahead, but she also couldn't help herself from giving Maria shirt. "You sure? I thought we were going to go at this until we were finished, even if we had to work into the night?" She said, with an overstated teasing voice, to make sure Maria understood she agreed with her decision to stop while she could still stand.

"Would it help my case if I made Bombay Aloo for lunch?" Maria replied, throwing her hammer aside and grabbing her crutches, well aware that her cooking was one of Nat's secret weaknesses.

"That depends very much on what protein you're planning to serve with it." Natasha said with a smirk, already planning how she would spent her afternoon. It was most likely going to start with an N, and end with an AP.

"How does chickpeas sound?" Maria replied, basing her decision entirely around what sort of leftovers they had in the fridge, without giving Natasha a chance to tease her about the fact that she had a complete catalogue of their fridge's content stored in her head.

 

In all the time following Maria's injury they had never been back up on the second floor. The ground floor still had months of focused work left to go, and Natasha hadn't needed anything from her floor since she began sleeping in Maria's bed. Besides Maria couldn't follow her up there since crutches and moldy staircase didn't play very well together so what was even the point?

Well now she had promised to tutor Maria in Russian, and to do that she needed her copy of Anna Karenina, which was in her room. For some reason she was terrified of that now. To the point where she had been standing on the first step on the stair and looking up for 10 minutes.

Maria came up behind her and rubbed her shoulder for a few seconds. She didn't say anything just quietly supported Natasha and left the option to talk about her feelings in the air. She wasn't sure why, but for some reason Maria's presence only increased her sense of unease.

Natasha thought back long and hard, hoping to find a memory that could explain why she was feeling the way she did.

She had been maybe 8 years old, young enough to still have the childish notion of rebelling. The 2nd floor was off limit for "students", it was the faculty living quarters, and trespassing got you 4 hours of detention with Ivan Somodorov. Getting herself out of the handcuffs meant to keep her in bed had been easy, getting Marina Stakova to follow suit had been a lot harder. As with anything else in life, she had in the end succeeded.

There wasn't any real goal to their expedition, no jar of cookies they wanted to raid or jewelry to steal (unlike the students who had tried before them). No the reason for this operation was much more noble, much more powerful if it succeeded. To prove that madame Bolshoi was only mortal like the children she taught.

That was the night Natasha was taught a valuable lesson that would stay with her the rest of her life. "If Madame B said she was akin to God, then she was for all intents and purposes akin to God."

 

"I... I can't do this." Natasha shamefully admitted.

"It's okay Natasha." Maria said soothingly, leaving herself open for a hug, while leaving it up to Natasha to decide if she was ready for physical contact. Never in her life had Natasha been more in need of a hug than right then.

Maria held her close, cooed into her ear and rubbed her back. Natasha wasn't sad, not really just numb, and confused and a little bit ashamed. "It, didn't use to be a problem, before we got together I mean. Now I just, now I just hate and fear everything about this house so much."

Natasha squeezed her hard, and Maria gave back as good as she got. "Then why are we still here? We've got 2 sleeping bags and a combat knife, we can live everywhere." Maria said, making Natasha chuckle. Considering their combined training and experiences, her assessment was probably at least very close to true.

"That sounds an awful lot like giving up honey." Natasha said, the challenge clear in her tone, as she let go of the hug.

"And I would rather die a second time than let that happen." Maria fired back, and punched her shoulder. After a moments' awkward hesitation she rubbed the same shoulder gently. "But seriously, if you don't wanna live here, then let's not live here."

Natasha pursed her lips in thought. "I'll think about it, if you promise to stop tempting fate. It would be just my luck to have to burry my soulmate in the life after death." It was meant as a joke, and Maria was nowhere close to having learned to read Natasha (if such a thing was even possible), but her instincts just told her there was the slightest hint of genuine worry in her voice.

"Deal! Now come on, I'm sure we can find something else by Tolstoy in that dusty old library." Maria said and turned around. When she began walking towards the first-floor library, Natasha slapped her butt, just hard enough to feel, and Maria made a loud, girly "eeep" because she knew her girlfriend found that infinitely satisfying.

 

"I've been thinking." Maria said, slurping coffee with her legs slung up on Bezukhovs oak writing desk.

"That we're in the bad place?" Natasha casually replied, looking across the bookshelf, still not ready to admit that her old "headmaster" had absolutely abysmal taste in literature. "It's the only thing that makes sense, right, it's the only thing that makes sense?" Maria said, happy that she wasn't as insane as she had thought in a moment of weakness. "Kind of an obvious scam when you think about it." Natasha nodded to herself and turned around to face her girlfriend.

"I know!" Maria sat down her to reinforce how passionate she was about the subject. "I mean how stupid do they think we are? Oh no it's fine, your actions had a net positive effect so you're in the clear. My forking glass!" She continued the spite clear in her voice.

"It's the oldest scam in the book, appeal to their vanity... As if any amount of guilt would ever change the fact that I denied Marina Stakova a life free of the Red Room, without a second thought." There was a mixture of admiration and spite in Natasha's voice. Admiration for the cleverness of inventing a method of torture that got victims to inflict their own pain. Spite because she almost fell for it herself.

"Only problem is that it all falls apart the moment you manage to rub 2 brain cells together, and have even the slightest capability for self-critique. _It was an honest mistake_ , doesn't really work when you misread a map and blow up a building housing a family on the run instead of an insurgent safe house." Maria did her best to naturally weave her own shame into her reply, she didn't want Natasha to feel patronized, but she also felt obligated to share a crime of her own to even the moral playing field.

"Well you've met the average person, do you really think them capable of doing either of those things, much less both at the same time?" Natasha snarked and Maria chuckled.

They shared a long moment of silence, as they both accepted their new realization.

"We should probably make a plan to beat this right?" Maria finally said, fiddling awkwardly with the edge of her shirt as she did so. How the hell did you fight back against actual demons when you were in literal hell?

 

"We should." Natasha agreed, and stood up from her chair. "But first." She continued, and walked behind the desk next to maria. "We should get a drink." And pulled out an old bottle of vodka, caked in dust, from a drawer in the desk.

Maria took the bottle from Natasha's outstretched hand, and with a bit of tactical violence removed the half rotten cork. "Na zdorovie" she called out hoping she wasn't mangling the pronunciation too bad, and put the bottle to her lips.

Maria handed the bottle back to Natasha who took a big swig, and made an almost pornographically satisfied sigh. "mhh, taste like abusers turning over in their grave." They smiled at each other as Natasha passed the bottle to Maria again.

They kept passing the bottle back and forth until it was empty. Then once Maria got a hold of a notepad, and some maps of the neighborhood things started getting really crazy!

 

* * *

 

The next morning Natasha woke up with a suspicious lack of headache. She had never been known to get killer hangovers, but the complete absence of anything even resembling it had her spidey sense tingling.

She began poking her girlfriend awake. "Hill, you feeling anything?" She asked as she continued aggressively poking her in the kidney. "Merp" was her first intelligible reply, followed by "Well and thoroughly forked in every remotely errogenous zone. Other than that nope." The penny had already dropped for Maria, though she still looked around the room to see if there wasn't something she was missing. All she found was discarded clothes, half drawn out plans, empty bottles, and a few sex-toys that were definitely due for a wash.

"You think..." Natasha started. "That they know?" Maria finished. "Could be, and they're forking with us to keep us on our toes?" It was the first idea that had come to Natasha's mind, arbitrarily changing the rules was classic red room tactics. "It's either that or they fear letting us bond through pain will get us too close, so they turned pain off until they need it again?" Maria was about to suggest she could fall down the stairs to test that hypotheses, but decided she owed it to Natasha after last nights many (many) orgasms, to save the heart attacks until after breakfast.

"Not to worry though" Maria said as her brain started working again. "Because if I remember correctly we planned for this last night." She tried to escape the bed but forgot to account for the fact that her superspy girlfriend was also part Koala. "Are you suuuuure we don't have time for another round of naked tango before we get back to overthrowing the forces of hell?" She purred seductively into Maria's ear. "Do you think I would lie about being all forked out with you in my bed? Besides, with you I think naked wrestling is a more fitting allusion." Maria replied petting the back of her head. "Wouldn't put it beyond you to forego sex for being a huge nerd."

Sensing her defeat, Natasha let go of her girlfriends. "I can neither confirm nor deny that I may have done that in the past, but never with you Nat. Nothing matters to me more than you." Maria kissed Natasha's forehead and went looking around the room for their scattered plans. Natasha in the meantime was perfectly content staying beneath the blankets and admiring the view. ("the view" being her nickname for Maria's butt).

Most of the parts Maria would need to consult, she found next to the used condom pile or hiding under a bra. However a few pages had gone flying when Natasha had picked her up and thrown her up on the dresser, and among these were a very important flow chart. "Babe do you have any idea where subsection 32b went?" Maria asked when she had gotten bored of sexily looking around for papers. "Is that the one you insisted on stopping in the middle of anal sex to proof read, cause if so I hid it beneath the mattress." Maria took a moment to think back to last night. "No I think that was 27c through e, and as I recall I didn't stop you from having you way with me, I just asked you to slow down a bit, so that I could multitask."

"Then I guess we'll need to practice your multitasking abilities in the future so that won't be necessary." Natasha smirked, and that did it for Maria who climbed back into bed. "Why wait?" she asked already straddling Natasha's waist. "What happened to consulting the plan for changes in condition." Natasha asked, before biting down on Maria's neck. "I can multitask" she groaned. "That's what we're here to find out isn't it." Natasha giggled, as she moved from Maria's neck down her front.

 

"For real this time, what is our plans for Gabriel or whoever holds his leash changing the rules?" Natasha asked after their second wind had worn off.

"Gimme a sec to find the right papers." Maria said and cautiously stuck her leg out of bed, fully expecting another ambush that didn't come. "Let me see, part 19: _changes in living conditions and/or rules of the universe_ subheading 14: _If the rules of the universe are changed in a light to moderate manner in a way that does not directly affect our day to day lives (for example all milk becomes pink, or the stores stop stocking lobster in favor of crawfish) we will gently but insistently inquire with Gabriel to the reasoning behind this change, without, if possible, revealing whether we consider this a change for the better or the worse_." It was the first time Natasha had really head her use her commander voice, and yeah, she was definitely going to need Maria to use that tone in bed more often.

"Wait, how many possibilities did we account for?" Natasha said when she realized just how obscenely specific part 19: subheading 14 was. "All of them." Maria replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As far as Natasha was concerned, that was definitely cheating, because how was she not supposed to want to kiss the daylights out of her girlfriend when she was being such a huge dork and planning for everything (the only part of last night Natasha clearly remembered, was drunkenly installing that sex swing they'd had lying around for ages).

"Do you know that you're lovely?" Natasha asked after the kiss, and Maria's face turned tomato red. "I've had my suspicions." Maria stammered, trying and failing to play it cool.

 

* * *

 

"Hey Gabriel, can we have a moment of your time?" Maria said while Natasha circled around his other side effectively trapping him in the corner of froyo store. "Maria, Natasha, of course what can I do you for?" It was hard to read the architect, mostly due to the whole "not human" thing, but their immediate impression was that they had him even more flustered than usual. If that was the case, good meant he was more likely to slip up, if it was just an act, their plan didn't change they just had to be aware that he was playing coy.

"We were just wondering." Maria started innocently "You see, last night we got a tiny bit..." Natasha continued her assault in the same tone. "Inebriated." "Shirtfaced." "Blackout drunk" "It's a miracle we fell asleep in our beds." "Without blowing a hole in anything." The ping pong conversation clearly had its desired effect of putting Gabriel on the wrong foot.

"Anyways we were just wondering." "With that in mind." "How come we woke up without anything resembling a hangover?" Natasha let the sentence hang in there for just long enough that Gabriel had time to open his mouth and say the first syllable of his answer, before Maria stepped in. "I mean, when I got an open fracture, there was no shortage of pain, yet here I am having slept like a baby, despite a B.A.C. frighteningly close to something that could cause lasting damage in the average woman." Natasha couldn't help herself. "You're far from average babe." "Thanks babe." Maria replied without a second's hesitation.

"I, uhm, I suppose I should be honest with you." Gabriel awkwardly stammered. "Why Gabriel, it almost sounds like." Natasha paused to draw in a dramatic gasp. "You've been lying to us?!" Gabriel was sweating a strange fluorescently green and pink liquid. "Lying is such a strong word." He nervously adjusted his shirt collar. "Is there a word you would prefer we use Gabriel?" Maria asked diplomatically. "Uhm, we, that is to say I, may have used some, ahem, underhanded methods to speed up your romantic engagement."

Natasha was not having it.  "Oh come on!" Neither was Maria. "You're not seriously still pushing that soulmates bullshirt on us!" Gabriel diplomatically put his hands up in surrender. "I am so sorry that it took such a grim turn, but if I hadn't done something you two wouldn't have spoken another word to each other for 4236 years, and not even upper management knows when you 2 would get together again." Maria put on her best commander face, and moved so far into his personal space it became effectively none-existent. "Nuh-uh, there is no such thing as soul mates, humans are complex and ever-changing creature there is no one person perfect for every shade of another person, and if there was, mine certainly wouldn't be Natasha Alianovna Romanoff."

Natasha quickly followed suit in giving Gabriel hell, she didn't take offence to what Maria said about her, far as she was concerned it was without a doubt true. "Just get it through your thick skull, we are not buying what you're selling, so tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

"That is what I've done." Gabriel whimpered pathetically. "What other possible reason would I have for letting one of you get injured, other than letting the other come to her aid?" He was quite literally falling apart at the seams.

Maria and Natasha went back to their 2-pronged attack strategy. "Oh I don't know." "random idea off the top of my head." "Maybe because..." "This is the bad place and you're here to hurt us?"

Gabriel burst out laughing "This? The bad place? That's absurd. I mean now that you mention it I did hear that some of the people down there were running an experiment with a fake good place, but why in the world would you of all people be there?"

They looked awkwardly at each other, then to Gabriel, then back to each other. "Hello, contract killer." "And the brains behind more than 500 clandestine operations. Pretty sure both of those earn us a solid helping of bad person points."

"Yes of course, but those are vastly outweighed by all the good you did." Gabriel went right back to kind and sagely with a big smile on top. "Natasha it's true you did some deplorable things in your youth, but you were a child in a bad situation doing what you had to, to survive, and in your adult life you've made it up for it exactly 17.382 times over. And Maria, yes you may have done quite a few things that doesn't fit the classical definition of moral, but you always did so for a higher purpose, and you never enjoyed it."

"I'm not buying it." "Me neither." They replied with identical unimpressed smirks on their faces. "I could show you the spreadsheet with the measures of your actions, would that help?"

"Fiiiine." Maria groaned.

 

They spent 4 days pouring over spreadsheets, cross-referencing events with 3rd party sources and digging through footnotes, until they were convinced that yes maybe, there was some truth to what Gabriel had been saying about them.

"Okay but I still have one question." Natasha said after digging into the celebratory froyo Janet had brought them after they had admitted defeat in proving their own evilness.

"Ask away." Gabriel said smiling that fatherly smile Maria and Nat were slowly learning to trust.

"Why are we living in the red room?" At that Gabriel smile turned upside down. "Yes that was maybe not my best idea of the bunch, I thought you would like the chance to build something from it. But I now realize all I did was tear open old wounds, if you give me a few days I'll have a new house-"

"Don't bother." Natasha interrupted him with a finger to his lips. "Masha we have to go! Remember the portrait of Madame B in the entry way? I just realized there's nothing stopping me from drawing devil horns and a handlebar mustache on it with sharpie."

With that they took off running hand in hand. Maria just managing to yell over her shoulder: "This still doesn't mean we're soulmates!" 

**Author's Note:**

> As always feel free to come talk to me on tumblr at https://offbrand-valk.tumblr.com/


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